Friday

Me and Princess Lollipop went out to a Craft Shop today and visited a few other shops too :-) I was very disappointed with the lack of choice in scrapbooking papers available and in the end didn't buy any. I did find a pack of six glass spice jars for less than £5 as I forgot to take my measuring tape I just have to hope they fit on the shelves I've already got! I couldn't find a plain, chrome kitchen roll holder either, so ended up buying that on Ebay when we got home again. I did find a magnetic noticeboard for my new Craft Room and I'm all excited and can't wait to get it in place :-)

Princess Lollipop decided she wanted to go to MacDonalds and I said no, so she stomped off shouting "Well I go Disney and YegoYand (Legoland) then" she didn't she had to get back in the car and come home lol. Another Disney Maniac in the family - my brain washing job is complete :-)

We had a pretty quiet evening, with chippie tea and early bedtimes for the littlies :-) Drama Teen spent the evening at Latest Boyfriend's house and came home quite late in the evening. She is quite nervous about starting her first job tomorrow, so she went almost straight to bed so that she can get up early enough to have a shower before going to work :-) She's got a Saturday job working at a Deli in the next village, the same one where OUR shop is - so Mr Messy will be able to ferry her to and from work :-)

Thursday's Positives

Enjoying a "day off" from littlies. I love all my children very, very much but sometimes, every so often I need some me time and I really appreciate Mr Messy understanding and supporting this for me :-)

Taking the Christmas decorations down and getting them all put away ready for next time. The lounge feels so much bigger and airier now and I like it :-)

Having Drama Teen willingly help out with jobs - she looked after Princess Lollipop to give me a chance to finish the vacuuming (and give Mr Messy a chance to wind down after work). She started emptying the dishwasher with no prompting. And she helped me get all the heavy boxes of Christmas decorations back on the high shelf of the upstairs cupboard with no complaining. Thank you so much Drama Teen :-)

And I started to claim my Craft Room - I moved all Mr Messy's stuff off one of the wall cubbies and put MY stuff their instead :-) Fingers crossed Mr Messy doesn't feel ill and isn't too busy to get the rest of his stuff cleared this weekend - then it will be mine all mine mwahahaha :-)

Day Off Day :-)

I took Princess Lollipop to Tiny School this morning and then had the whole day to myself, thanks to Mr Messy picking Princess Lollipop up and taking her back to OUR shop with him. I had a really productive day - I took all the Christmas decorations down, got them all back in their boxes and even sorted out the ones we don't bother putting up any more and bagged them for the Charity Shop. Then I sorted out Princess Lollipop's toy tubs, got rid of loads of MacDonald's Plastic Cr*p, a job I can only do when the children aren't here!! The cuddlies that have migrated downstairs from her cot are now back in their original place and a few got assigned to the Charity Shop bag too!! So long as only a few things disappear at once, they don't seem to notice!! I also rearranged some of the toys in the lounge and moved the dressing up rail to a much more sensible position, Princess Lollipop doesn't agree and keeps demanding to know "WHY my dwess ups dere now?" She'll get used to it soon, she adjusts to changes a lot better than Little Prince does. I also gathered up all Mr Messy's "stuff" from around the room and its now in a huge pile on the fireguard!! Normally I'd dump it all in his office, so its out of my way, but as I want him to clear out his office to make my it my Craft Room I can't!!

I've decided the next job is to clear one of Little Prince's downstairs bookshelves and put them on the spaces in his bedroom bookshelves, to create room to move Princess Lollipop's books onto the shelf, instead of exploding out of the now too small tub. I'll probably do that tomorrow if Princess Lollipop has a nap, if she doesn't then I'll have to postpone it till next time she's at Tiny School. I can't do it at weekend because Little Prince will insist on helping and then insist that nothing can move as he likes it where it is, I've mentioned my plan and hopefully presenting it as a fait accomplis will forestall any arguments about moving the books! Wish me luck with that one lol.

After I'd had some lunch and a rest, as my back was killing me, I got all the usual ornaments that had been displaced by Christmas decor put back. And then did a really thorough vac and dust all round the room, I thought I might as well as I had to move the sofas back to their usual positions anyway so it made sense to move them a bit further and vacuum under them too. I was still vacuuming when Mr Messy and Princess Lollipop arrived home from OUR shop, which didn't impress either of them!! Princess Lollipop doesn't like the vacuum cleaner and insists on having someone to sit with if I'm vacuuming and she's in the room.

I eventually finished just before Little Prince returned from Y's house. Little Prince began to run in circles round the lounge, excitedly exclaiming "I've got so much room" over and over again. After about 10 minutes of this we managed to persuade him to play on his iPod Touch (his favourite Christmas present) for a while before it was time to get ready for bed. As usual he took ages and ages to get ready for bed, he gets so distracted!! After the first time I shouted to him to hurry up, I had time to help Drama Teen empty the dishwasher, do all the hand washing up and clean the worktops, and he still wasn't downstairs!! He came down pretty quickly after the second "call" probably because he could hear that I was losing patience with him over how long he was taking!! Once he'd had all his medicine I took him upstairs and encouraged him to sort out the pile of clothes on the floor and take all the washing to the laundry baskets, and then tucked him in. Not long before Christmas he finally agreed to try reading other books than Harry Potter (an obsession that has lasted over a year!!) and I left him reading one of my old Famous Fives quietly to himself :-)

Back downstairs I finally got mine and Mr Messy's tea in the oven while he chatted to his Mum on the phone. Drama Teen joined us for tea, although she ate one of her pastas, rather than have the same as us, it was lovely to have her eating with us rather than her eating in her room. After tea she helped me get all the boxes of Christmas decorations put away in the upstairs cupboard, my back was feeling considerably worse, so I wouldn't have managed without her - thank you so much Drama Teen.

Wednesday's Positives

Little Prince managing to cope very well with the disappointment of not going to his friend's house, and not having a major blow up over it. I'm really proud of how he coped :-)

Mr Messy taking over with Princess Lollipop when she had pushed me to the limit all day :-)

Having a lovely relaxing, no responsibility for the littlies, time off, early night :-)

Thinking of this resolution in the first place - I'm really enjoying going to bed on a positive note :-) And I did think of these Positives last night, even if I didn't post them till this morning lol.

Wednesday's Goings On

I thought me and Princess Lollipop were going to have a quiet day in, but I got a text from Drama Teen begging me to come and get her and Latest Boyfriend from college and drop them off at his house. As it was very cold, and they would have had to walk for an hour to get the bus I took pity on them and said I'd collect them, besides she bribed me with the promise of a bar of chocolate - so how could I not?!?! About ten minutes before we were due to go out Princess Lollipop decided she wanted some cereal, and as she has hardly been eating for the past few days (she doesn't seem ill at all, just not interested in eating!) I wanted to take advantage of her willingness and get something down her!! She insisted I fed her rather than do it herself, and as that normally works out quicker I didn't argue. Then my Mum rang up for a chat, so I was balancing the phone on my shoulder trying to get Princess Lollipop to keep eating, she was much too busy demanding to know who was on the phone and when would it be her turn!! It was a pretty quick chat!!

Once Princess Lollipop had finally finished her cereal, and with minutes to go before we needed to leave, I realised that Mr Messy had probably forgotten to take Little Prince's medicine to school when he dropped him off this morning. Giving him the benefit of the doubt I rang him to check, and he hadn't realised he needed to take any, then he started to ask about the packages that arrived in the post this morning. Asking what they were, where they were from - I got more and more impatient with all the questions, I didn't know the answers and I now had NO TIME left to get to college, and had an extra errand to run too!!

I dropped the medication off at school, with Little Prince's new Classroom Assistant, who insisted on having a chat, as I politely tried to get away as quickly as possible!! Then Little Prince appeared wanting to know what I was doing at school, so I had to explain to him too. It seemed to take ages to get out of school again!! Finally back in the car I had to race to College, breaking the speed limit most of the way there, luckily the drive is mostly on country roads that rarely see a Police Car! I made it and was only 5 minutes later than I said I'd be - wow!!

Princess Lollipop was NOT happy when we got to Latest Boyfriend's house and Drama Teen got out of the car, she kept demanding more kisses and hugs and then wrapped her arms around Drama Teen's neck and refused to let go!! Drama Teen has spent a LOT of the Christmas holidays with Latest Boyfriend at his house, and I think Princess Lollipop has missed her. When we did get back home Princess Lollipop was in a foul mood and would ask for something and as soon as I got it/did it she would change her mind - this carried on ALL afternoon!! She did cheer up slightly when it was time to go and collect Little Prince from school.

Unfortunately it was then his turn to be in a foul mood, as non of his friends could come round to play. I said he could ring up one friend and ask if he could come round, and this lightened his mood considerably. He came off the phone saying Y's Mum had just popped out but that he and Y had arranged for Little Prince to go to Y's house to play, they had sensibly said they would get Y's Mum to ring up and confirm these arrangements when she got back from her errand. When she did ring it was to say that Little Prince couldn't come round that evening (Y's Dad was about to go working abroad for a couple of months and they were having a family evening) but that he could come round tomorrow evening. Little Prince took this news very well, I had expected a huge tantrum, I told him how proud I was of how he was coping with the change of plan. Well done Little Prince.

Instead of going to Y's house Little Prince and Princess Lollipop played on his computer, until Princess Lollipop got bored and came to watch Cbeebies instead. Then Little Prince started to watch videos on YouTube and ended up watching silly ones that have scary faces jump out at you. He has been insisting on watching these all over Christmas and scares himself silly with it. So we had a chat about why there is "Children's Internet" and "Grown up Internet" and agreed that he would stay off YouTube and go back to playing on Club Penguin instead. He played on there for about half an hour and came to tell me it was much nicer and he felt a lot better, fingers crossed he remembers this lol.

When Mr Messy came home he was working on something complicated on his computer and needed the littlies to be calm and quiet, which of course meant they were loud and crazy!! It was giving me a banging headache trying to keep them under control, and it was my turn to be in a foul mood!! Mr Messy suggested I had an early night, and he would look after Princess Lollipop for the evening and bring her up when he came to bed. It was just what I needed, time to relax reading a book then fall asleep without fighting an unwilling toddler to sleep too. I hardly read any of my book before falling into a deep sleep, bliss :-) I just wish the wind hadn't been so loud and gusty in the night, it woke me up and was obviously disturbing Mr Messy and Princess Lollipop as they were both very very restless, and trying to get back to sleep in the middle of them wasn't easy!!

Today's Positive

Princess Lollipop restarted at Tiny School after the two week Christmas Holiday, and went happily in filled with excitement, and no tears at all :-) And after months of medication to counteract a fear of poo-ing will now poo on the toilet, with no tears at all :-) I know, I know not a great thing to be blogging about, but after all the pain and fear she has been going through it is a HUGE achievement for her :-) As she says each and every time "I a bwave bwave giwl" and she really is - well done Princess Lollipop :-)

Today's happenings

Not a lot really lol. Mr Messy re-opened OUR shop after the Christmas Holidays, his assistance didn't turn up, we don't know why yet!! Princess Lollipop went happily back to Tiny School, demanded a kiss and hug at the door and then ran off to play :-) Drama Teen started back at College, but only had one lesson the whole day, so Mr Messy picked her up and took her back to OUR shop for a few hours. While she was there she paid her Christmas money into her bank account, posted her Provisional Driving License application and dropped off a CV for a potential part time job!! She was feeling so productive when she got home she went and tidied some more of her room - well done Drama Teen :-)

As everyone else was out me and Little Prince had a lovely morning together :-) We tidied away all his Christmas presents and the Lego he'd spread all over his bedroom floor (he wasn't too pleased with that one lol). Then we built one of the Lego sets he got for Christmas, my job was to find which pieces he needed and he put them all together. Then we played the new Wii Lego Harry Potter game, we make a good team - Little Prince does all the complicated maneuvers and I collect all the coins shouting "Get the coins!! Get the coins!!" good fun :-)

Mr Messy and Drama Teen came home mid afternoon as it was so quiet at OUR shop. Mr Messy then spent most of the afternoon fighting with the new TV and DVD/surround sound system, I'm not really sure what he was doing or whether or not it worked!! I do wonder why we can't just have "sound" why it has to be soooo complicated lol (and don't tell him but I can't really tell the difference anyway!!). And I'm really, really wondering why he is doing all this when the s*dding thing doesn't even play DVDs and will have to be returned soon!?!?! It must be one of those "man things" lol.